Brazzil
Racism
April 2003
Since I discovered the beauty and complexities of the Brazilian people at the tail end of 1999, I've done all that I could to learn as much as I could about the largest country in Latin America. I have written three articles for this magazine and appreciate the various contributions of others in helping to make Brazzil the informative magazine that it is. I, as an American of African descent, do not know everything and do not claim to know everything about this Portuguese speaking country that I adore so much, and in the same manner, I don't expect everyone else to know everything about it.
Honestly there are a lot of things about my own country's history that I still need to learn about! But every now and then an article will catch my eye that totally infuriates me. Every now and then when the issue of race comes up someone will say something that will make me lose my composure. It should come as no surprise because I will never forget when a well respected anthropology professor at my school could not understand the benefits that his father may have gained simply because of his whiteness at the expense of my grandfather's blackness.
In the past two weeks, two articles, "Blacks and Whites. We're All Brazilians" & "A Trap for Blacks," both written by Janer Cristaldo, have succeeded in demanding that I compose a reply. Everyone has a right to voice their opinions and after I contemplated ignoring Mr.Cristaldo's articles, I felt it necessary that I MUST voice my opinion also.
Although the majority of this article is a direct response to Mr. Cristaldo's comments, I hope that this article can stand alone as an informative piece for all. In the past month or so since my last article appeared in Brazzil, I have received many e-mails from all over the world. I can always tell whether the person writing to me is Brazilian or not from the tone of their letters. It seems that the vast majority of Brazilians who write to me continue to hold on to the outdated and defeated claim of a Brazilian "Racial Democracy" or like Cristaldo, "we're all Brazilians" and treated equal.
Take a paragraph from one particular e-mail I recently received in reference to my article "Where Did All the Blacks Go?" (March 2003):
"I read your article and thought it was very interesting. I'm from Brazil and I live in America for about five years. I'm from Paraná, south of Brazil, even though I have dark brown hair—which for you Americans could be a reason for not considering me a white person, since here if you are not blonde with blue or green eyes you are not white—I see myself as a white. I think the problem is that you Americans give a lot of importance to race and we Brazilians do not care about it. For us it's all about money. If there are two guys, one black but rich, and other white and poor, the black and rich will have much more dates than the white and poor. This is Brazil, this is so normal that many kids don't know what race means. Why don't they know? Because we do not hear a lot about race in Brazil, we don't care about it and this is something you Americans cannot understand."
This is an example of what I find difficult to grasp in the Brazilian attitude toward race and racism. How can this person say that she sees herself as white, an obvious choice, but then turn around and say that Brazilians do not hear a lot about race and that this is so normal that many kids don't know what race means. If this person is really as color blind as she thinks she is, why does she see herself as white?
If Brazilians don't see race as much as Americans do, why do 54 percent of the Brazilian population see themselves as white? Why is it that so many Brazilians who claimed that they were white in the Brazilian census seem to have a problem with black Brazilian activists persuading gente de cor to affirm their African ancestry? It would be interesting to see how many Brazilians who continue to claim that we Brazilians are all mixed checked the branco/branca category when faced with the question of race in the last Brazilian census.
Not Black, Not White
If you truly see Brazil as a nation of mixed people, then you would reply to questions pertaining to race in a way that I once read singer Caetano Veloso respond: "I am neither white nor black". And finally, in analyzing the worn out "if you've got money you're treated well" argument, how is it that this person doesn't seem to realize that for every twenty white Brazilians she meets who have attained a moderate amount of wealth, she will encounter perhaps one black Brazilian with similar financial status?
Here is another portion of the e-mail from the same person:
"You say you were very surprised in my country, the same is happening to me here. When people look at me they see me as white, but when I start to talk they notice that I have an accent, that I'm from Brazil. Then I'm not white anymore, I become a Latina or Hispanic, since 99 percent of Americans think we speak Spanish and see Latino or Hispanic as race. They should learn more about race because there's no such thing as Hispanic or Latino as race."
As an African-American, I can speak in depth about the disease of racism that is rampant in the world today. While I don't wish anyone to be subjected to racist attitudes, in some ways, I hope this Brazilian can learn from her American experience. In the same manner that she thought that she was white in America (only to be rudely awakened), millions of Afro-Brazilians think that Brazilian society sees them as equals until they experience racially motivated discrimination.
First of all, let me say that Brazil and America are indeed two different countries, with two different histories and holding two different positions on the world stage today. But while there are several differences, there are also several similarities. My adoration of Brazil began when I learned that there were so many faces there that looked like mine and those of millions of others who in this country would be labeled as black or African-American.
Since then, other facets of Brazilian history and culture have fascinated me also. Brazilian music, food, the obsession with futebol, Carnaval and the Portuguese language itself are but a few of the things that I have learned via the study of Brazil. I have also been introduced to the idea of racial identity and Brazilian style racism since I began my study of "all things Brazilian". As I said before, in this area, there are differences but also several similarities with American style racism. Perhaps more than the average Brazilian cares to recognize.
Let's take a look at a few of Mr. Cristaldo's comments:
1. "The country is discovering the mestiço. While the U.S. begins to recognize multi-raciality, some black groups in Brazil wanted even mulatos to declare themselves black on the last census. The purpose is obvious, which is to put pressure on the legislative power. Black Brazilians represented only 5.4 percent of the general population in 1999."
2. "Bahia, (is) a state with a definite black majority..."
The first point I must make is that although it is true that mulatos in the US are considered black, the mulato/mixed category is actually not new to the American census. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, there actually was a mulato category in official US census reports. The point here is that whether that person is considered mulato or black, in the majority of countries around the world, they are considered to be non-white but not non-black. As a matter of fact, the creation of the term pardo was developed as a way for the Brazilian government to hide the fact that it had such a high proportion of African descent people. (see this article: http://www.fapesp.br/livro59.htm)
Now, the problem with Mr. Cristaldo's reference to Bahia as a "state with a definite black majority" is the fact that he has already made it clear that he believes that the mulato category and the black category should remain separate. According to Brazilian Census reports, the state of Bahia is approximately 25 percent white, 20 percent black and 55 percent mulato. Now if mulatos/pardos are to be recognized as separate from pretos/negros, how can Bahia be a "state with a definite black majority"?
The answer would seem to be simple for even someone like Mr. Cristaldo. Pretos and pardos together ARE Bahia's "black majority." Statistically, it is impossible to separate the two categories and then claim that Bahia is a "state with a definite black majority." As blackness has always been looked upon as something to be ashamed of in Brazil, it is quite obvious that millions of Brazilians do not refer to themselves in this manner.
Shame of Being Black
In Frances Twine's book Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil, we learn that it has been a custom for many years for Brazilian gente de cor (people of color) to list their children in a lighter racial category. Thus, pretos can become pardos and pardos can become brancos (white). In my second essay for this magazine, I wrote of my experiences with "Danielle" and her family, all of whom were dark-skinned black people but were all listed as pardos on their birth certificates.
Now if dark skinned black people can be counted as mulatos, and the average Brazilian who looks like actress Camila Pitanga (who considers herself black) lists themselves as white, what does this tell us about the Brazilian census? It tells us that it hardly reflects the reality of the Brazilian population.
In reality, Brazil's elite has been ashamed of its huge African descent population for centuries and as Brazilian doctor and sociologist Raimundo Nina Rodrigues himself once said, "the black race of Brazil...will always constitute one of the factors of our inferiority as a people".
Hmmm...Statements like that remind me of American-style racism.
While racial characteristics can be seen, they can also be seen as a social construct. Thus, if we consider statistics such as income, education, illiteracy, life expectancy, and high blood pressure, which are influenced by a person's position in society, we could indeed come to the conclusion that the differences between pardos and pretos in Brazil are indeed negligible. In simple terms, Mr. Cristaldo, this means that whether a Brazilian looks like Milton Nascimento, Dorival Caymmi or Clara Nunes, they will most likely be treated the same and have the same prospects for succeeding in Brazil.
Mr.Cristaldo and millions of other Brazilians continue to point to the United States example as their justification for believing racism isn't as prevalent in Brazil. True, in America, people generally label one as black or white, but the simple fact that so many Brazilians consistently label each other with so many different racial terms could be adequate reason to believe that Brazilians are perhaps MORE race conscious or perhaps more racist than Americans!
There is yet another way to look at this perplexing issue of race. In my view, Brazil should either be broken into two racial categories (negro or branco) or four. I say four because if some black Brazilians are to be seen as being mixed, then white Brazilians must also be seen as mixed. Sure many Brazilian pretos or pardos look as if they may have some Native Brazilian or European ancestry, but similarly, the so-called "white" Brazilian often times has traces (sometimes more) of Native and African blood also.
If racism in Brazil didn't exist, there wouldn't be so many people attempting to whiten their identity by any and every means, including Mr. Cristaldo. Here is an interesting story that I remember from a few years ago. There was this guy with whom I used to work a few years ago who I didn't really remember until he told me who he was. He seemed to be a white guy, but he had shaven his head since last I had seen him. As the issue of race and national origin is fascinating to me, I couldn't help but stare into this guy's face. There was different about the way this white guy looked.
If I didn't know better I would have thought he had some strains of African blood flowing through his veins. Then he told me that he was Italian, which made all the sense in the world. Historians such as JA Rogers have long written about the extensive race mixing that has occurred between Africans, Italians, Spaniards and the Portuguese. In Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza's massive study of human genes, The History and Geography of Human Genes, we learn that the DNA of certain populations of Europeans, particularly Italians and Spaniards, are much closer to that of Sub-Saharan Africans than those of other European nations.
Because of the obvious African influence in the Spanish population, Rogers thought of Spain as an African nation in Europe. In his book Salazar and Modern Portugal, Hugh Kay calls the Portuguese a "mixed people" due to centuries of mixing with black Africans as well as Arabs. Now, my question is this: If Spanish, Portuguese and Italian people are said to have the blood of Africa flowing through their veins and yet remain white, why is it that a person of obvious African descent must be labeled as "mixed" because he/she has some non-African blood?
This is the development of a racial hierarchy that values whiteness while denigrating blackness.
While on the subject of DNA and phenotypes, let me also take the time to mention the recent work of anthropological geneticist, Spencer Wells. In Wells' work entitled The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, Wells states his theory that the aboriginal peoples of Australia were among the first people to migrate out of Africa, through India and eventually landing in Australia.
For many years, scientists have written that the DNA of Australian Aborigines is totally different than that of Africans even though in many ways, they, like other peoples of the southern Pacific islands, look like Africans. What does this have to do with Brazil? Well, I look at it this way. If anyone has seen photos of Australian Aborigines, they know that they have a very diverse phenotype. Most Aborigines have a dark brown skin color and hair that ranges from nearly straight, to wavy, curly with at times, blond coloring.
Some photos of Aborigines remind of some of the diverse looks I have seen when walking the streets of Bahia. Anthropological research has also proven that the peoples of the African continent have the most diverse pool of genetics and phenotypes in the world. This destroys the myth that all Africans look alike. In reality, Africans have more physical diversity than any other people on the planet! My point is, if Wells' theory is to be accepted, then we must add the Australian phenotype to the already diverse African pool.
Research has also proven that the phenotype that we refer to as Caucasoid is actually the youngest physical type to develop on the planet. This being said, no matter what racial mix a person is born of, if an African phenotype can range from the dark-skinned peoples of the Sudan, the "pepper corn" coiled hair of southern Africans, all the way to an Australian phenotype, then no matter what mix it took to come to that phenotype, it is still African. The British certainly didn't ask to analyze the DNA of the Australian Aborigine before annihilating him! In their view, they were like any other non-white people.
Italian Niggers
To prove my argument even further, it is a known fact that white people DO discriminate among themselves according to skin tone, eye and hair color. Italians have long been referred to as "niggers" and faced great discrimination along the roads to their acquired whiteness in America because of their dark hair, features and certain African facial characteristics. Caucasians who have blond hair, pale skin and blue eyes are considered by most to "whiter" than their darker brunette counterparts.
In her article, "Pale Perfection: White Women in Pursuit of an Aryan Ideal", M. Wilson analyzes what she calls the "hierarchy of feature preferences among Whites". Yet and still, brunettes with brown eyes and somewhat swarthy skin are still, for all intents and purposes, considered white. Why is it that black Brazilians who may not have skin complexions that are dark as oil or extremely pixaim (kinky) hair should not be considered black when this same standard is not applied to dark brunettes who claim to be white? Whether one realizes it or not, racial mixing between blacks, whites, and peoples of the Asian continent has been going on for much longer than the 16th century arrival of Europeans in the Americas!
3. "However, while a negro is obviously afrodescendant, brown people are both afro and eurodescendant. If we adopt the new nomenclature, I will be forced to declare myself eurodescendant. No tarnish there, as far as I'm concerned."
This argument has always been flawed to me. First of all, the vast majority of black people have varying degrees of brown skin! If a person's skin is brown because of his/her African ancestry, and they have certain African facial features, most societies will label that person according to their African ancestry. It is this African and/or Native ancestry and somewhat dark skin that denies most "white" Brazilians official white status when and if they come to the US.
And from your statements in these articles, Mr. Cristaldo, you don't have to tell us that you "will be forced to declare" yourself a "eurodescendant" because it is quite obvious from your views how much you value your whiteness! If you ever come to the States though, don't tell anyone if you have a pé na cozinha ("foot in the kitchen")!
4. "In some of the email messages I received, I am accused of defending the argument that there is no racism in Brazil. In a certain way, I do defend it. Some form of racism we all have, or we would not be human. But never at the level of the U.S. or European countries. A black person, if rich or successful, is esteemed and even envied in Brazil. Millions of Brazilian whites would feel extremely honored to be photographed next to a Pelé."
5. "During my Porto Alegre years, I was a regular at the table of Lupicínio Rodrigues, whom I much admired, at the Adelaide bar. Lupicínio—who wrote the most beautiful samba lyrics in Brazil—was universally loved by all gaúchos."
6. "Although our population has an expressive white majority, it was the first state in the country to elect a black governor, Alceu Collares."
It is truly a shame that in the year 2003 people continue to use Brazilian entertainers and athletes such as Pelé to try and down play the effects of racism in society. Many people use this same logic in the US. Just because you allow a black person to entertain you doesn't necessarily mean you would like for a person who looks like them to be your neighbor, marry your daughter or be president of your country.
The success of a few black people in Brazil does not stop the daily bouts of racism that the average black Brazilian must endure. Also, when it comes to wealth and success, it still doesn't mean that a racist white person will accept a black person as their social equal. It is only when that wealth and success is RECOGNIZED that that person of color MAY get the respect they should have received in the beginning.
Governor Benedita da Silva and the late great geographer Milton Santos have spoken in interviews about being stopped when entering important political or academic meetings by people who assumed that they didn't belong there because they were black. It's also funny that you should mention Alceu Collares being elected governor. In 1993, in Vitória, state of Espírito Santo, a 19-year old black female college student named Ana Flávia Peçanha de Azeredo was assaulted and punched in the face by a 40-year old white woman and her 18-year old son over the use of an elevator in an apartment complex.
Know Your Place!
In Brazil, still today, maids must use the back service elevator while residents use public elevators. These two people were infuriated by the fact that this black girl didn't "know her place" and insisted on teaching her a lesson. This matter of extreme hostility probably would have never been published in newspapers had the girl not been the daughter of Espírito Santo governor Albuino Azeredo, a black man.
A similar incident happened to the family of futebol superstar Ronaldo. According to reports, when Ronaldo's mother Sônia, aunt Dirce and sister Ione tried to enter a R$1.5 million (US$ 500,000) condominium, their entrance was blocked as they were told by a neighbor that he didn't want to see the building frequented by "people of the lower level" and "favelados" (shanty town dwellers). This incident must be analyzed for several reasons:
One, Ronaldo is one of the highest paid soccer players in the world, thus his family is obviously well taken care of. But because they were Ronaldo's family and not Ronaldo himself, their social and economic level was judged by their appearance (i.e. their color). This demonstrates my point. They obviously have money but the color of their skin is associated with poverty, criminal activity and other negative connotations.
Once again, this has nothing to do with social class!
Two, most Brazilians know that Ronaldo's mother is not very dark-skinned. She would be considered a mulata or morena by Brazilian standards. Yet and still, she was treated like a common criminal. In this situation, it is clear that whether an Afro-Brazilian has clearly definable African physical characteristics or a more racially mixed appearance, in the end, they are treated as black people.
Was this a matter of social class? I think the point has been well established.
While Brazil may have a few successful black politicians, it is only because they are considered "safe" by the majority of the population. In the same way that so many Americans claim that they admire Colin Powell, what would happen if he were to start talking more about reparations for African-Americans? The majority of his white admirers would probably leave him faster than David Duke at a Black Panther rally!
Mr. Cristaldo, I ask you to read your own words: "A black person, if rich or successful is esteemed and even envied in Brazil."
In other words, if he is a regular person earning two to three minimum salaries like the majority of black Brazilians, he is NOT esteemed or envied. Athletics and entertainment are never accurate curriculums in order to study the level of equality in a country. Let's take the US for example. Between the three major sports leagues, NBA (basketball), NFL (football) and MLB (baseball), there are less than 3,000 openings for an athlete to fill in any one of the more than 90 teams. At last count, the American population stood at some 280 million people. Even if we assumed that only 30 million were men who were of professional sport playing age, it is obvious the astronomical odds against him earning one of those coveted positions.
In Brazil, let me remind you that the majority of the futebol players earn maybe a few minimum salaries and it has also been discovered that white players earn more than black players. Brazilian soccer has been traditionally one of the few occupations that Afro-Brazilians have been allowed to excel in. (Below is an excerpt from a doctoral thesis in sociology)
"Studies with 327 players of 17 clubs from Rio show that while 26.6 percent of white athletes earn up to a minimum salary, among blacks the proportion is 48.1 percent. The percentage is 34.9 among all players. At the top of the salary pyramid, 24.8 percent of whites earn more than 20 minimum salaries; among blacks, the percentage is 14.8, below the average among all players (17.1 percent earning more than 20 minimum salaries)."[Minimum wage in Brazil is 240 reais a month or around 80 dollars.]
Like in the US, black people are thought to be good in sports and entertainment, but what many Brazilians don't seem to realize is that when Brazilian futebol was first beginning to organize leagues, Afro-Brazilians were not allowed to play because the game was só para brancos (only for whites). As a matter of fact, when the first black Brazilian players were allowed to play for the famous Fluminense soccer club, they were forced to wear rice powder on their faces in order to appear lighter and also straighten their hair. The nickname of the team's cheer even today is known as pó-de-arroz (rice powder) because of this racist practice.
I suppose this was because of social class, right?
Numbers Show Inequality
The situation becomes worse when we consider the lack of Afro-Brazilians in the Brazilian Congress, the number of black businessmen and women and the number of black Brazilians in college. The rate of illiteracy was reported to be 26 percent for Afro-Brazilians while it is 10 percent for whites. Of the 513 members of Congress, only 12 are of African descent while only two of the 81 senators are of African ancestry. Afro-Brazilians are 63 percent of the Brazil's poor and less than 16 percent of the students graduating from a university (in 1998), according to government figures.
I will not go on with statistics because these inequalities have been prominently featured in past issues of this magazine. The point that I am trying to prove is that these are statistics with which to judge quality of life in a particular social environment. In Brazil, it has never been the intention of the government to allow Afro-Brazilians the same opportunities as white Brazilians. The republic, like in the US, was built on racism. After abolition of slavery, the Brazilian elite financed the immigration of millions of Europeans to Brazil to replace African slave labor while banning immigration from Africa.
Brazil had millions of both free people of color and recently freed slaves in which to fill employment opportunities. They chose not to. There is no way to blame social class on this choice for race is the ONLY factor! The Brazilian elite didn't care if the slaves who built their country rotted and died in the streets, and for those who DID manage to survive, they promoted widespread miscegenation with white Brazilians in order to eventually erase all traces of African ancestry in the population.
Don't believe it? In 1911, João Batista de Lacerda represented Brazil in the first Universal Congress of the Races in London and proudly proclaimed that within a century of miscegenation, black people would ultimately disappear from Brazilian society. While the Americans were violently slaughtering black people, Brazil's leaders chose to try and mix the African blood right out of the country. As a matter of fact, folklorist and literary critic Silvio Romero, in his haste to whiten the Brazilian population, criticized recent German immigrants because they resisted mixing with Brazil's large colored population. Again, these ideals have nothing to do with one's social class.
While it is possible for one person to have a different interpretation of why social classes in Brazil seem to be divided by race, these are the facts! Do the research!
Now in my response to point number 6, I mentioned that when Afro-Brazilians were finally allowed to join futebol clubs, they were forced to wear rice-powder on their faces in order to mask their dark-skinned faces. Another fact that the average Brazilian who doesn't believe racism exists in Brazil (or that it is at least not as strong as American racism) doesn't seem to know is that in the history of Brazilian stage and film, Brazilian Indians were not permitted to become actors, thus, Afro-Brazilian actors were hired to play Indian roles with their faces painted red!
At the same time, when roles in plays were to depict black people as major characters, white actors were hired to play these roles with their faces painted black! Many African-Americans are familiar with the racist American film era in which white actors such as Al Jolson wore blackface to depict stereotypes of black people and this is yet another example of the extreme level of racism that is an intimate part of America's cultural and racial past.
These racist images of African-Americans is another subject that infuriates the average black American who is familiar with American history. So, again, we have another example of Brazilian racist practices that were identical to American racist practices. So I would like to know how you, Mr.Cristaldo, would deny this overt form of racism in Brazil's past, the very foundation of the racism that exists in Brazil today.
Is It All True?
If you would like to read a little about the blackface/redface era in Brazilian film and theatre, check out Robert Stam's book Tropical Mulitculturalism. Also in the book Bossa Nova by Ruy Castro, we learn that in the 1950s, actor/activist Abdias do Nascimento was once fired from the play Orfeu that was directed by white singer/songwriter/poet Vinicius de Moraes and replaced by a white actor who played the part in blackface. In the Stam book, we also learn that the Brazilian elite were infuriated when they learned that famed American film director Orson Welles planned to use a majority Afro-Brazilian cast for his film It's All True.
Mr. Welles was constantly harassed by "government thugs" and the Brazilian media who didn't want Welles to relay to the world images of Brazilian favelas, "no-good half-breeds" and "dances of negros covered with maracatu feathers, reminiscent of the temples of the African wilds". The Brazilian media blasted Welles for his insistence on using black actors and composers and presenting Rio as if it were "another Harlem". The It's All True controversy was a mark on Welles's career that eventually led to the demise of his career. For your information, Mr.Cristaldo, using blackface or redface so that people of certain "undesirable" races are excluded from a situation has NOTHING to do with social class!
Let us also not underestimate the role that the entertainment industry and media play in influencing our opinions of certain issues. With this in mind, let us also remember this when we walk the streets of Bahia (a 75 percent black state) and never see a black face on the cover of a magazine (except for Raça Brasil) or rarely see a black face on Brazilian television (except as criminals, maids, pagodeiros, futebol players).
I have spent a total of 11 weeks in Bahia and I've seen it! Let us also remember that in all the years of Brazilian beauty competitions, only once has a black woman been crowned Miss Brasil (Deise Nunes de Souza in 1986). In this sense, even a country like America, that many Brazilians deem to be extremely racist, have made more progress in this area as there have been at least five black Miss Americas, including Vanessa Williams in 1984, Suzette Charles (who completed Williams' reign after a scandal), Debbye Turner in 1990, Marjorie Vincent in 1991 and recently Erika Harold.
As physical beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, this also has nothing to do with social class. What is your argument here, Mr.Cristaldo?
Oh, and Mr.Cristaldo, while you ponder that question, take some time and study some of those old Carnaval Samba lyrics that you have probably sung over and over and tell me how they depict Afro-Brazilian women?
Ultimately, my question to Brazilians who consider themselves to be white is:
If you do indeed look and are accepted as white, how are you in any position to speak on whether racism exists in Brazil or not?
Let's consider a comparable condition. Is a man in any position to dismiss the discomfort that a woman may complain about during her menstrual cycle?
The point is, while it is indeed possible that you may have never heard any subtle or blatantly racist comments or witnessed racist acts in Brazil, it is far more important to ask a black Brazilian if THEY have ever experienced racism or if THEY think racism is strong in Brazil. I HAVE asked countless black Brazilians about this issue. I have yet to meet a black Brazilian who says that racism in Brazil isn't a powerful force.
In comparison, whose opinion is more likely to be true? The outsider or the insider? If a white person and a black person get the same job and have the same credentials and experience, but the white person is paid more money and the only difference between the two people is race, is this also a class issue? Since most people don't talk about their income, how would you know if racism was at work or not? While on this subject, I would like to mention that while black Brazilians may be able to give a more accurate view or personal experience of/with racism, this is not to say white Brazilians or Americans don't see how much racism is intertwined in our everyday interactions.
For those Brazilians who still believe that black Brazilian activists continue to complain about a problem that doesn't exist, or at least as in America, I encourage you to read the work of Antonio Sérgio Alfredo Guimarães (associate professor of Sociology at the University of São Paulo), Nelson do Valle Silva and Carlos Alfredo Hasenbalg (both of IUPERJ/Rio de Janeiro). They are all white Brazilian sociologists who have written extensively on how race determines one's success in Brazil. I think the title of one of do Valle Silva's essays says it all: The Cost of Not Being White in Brazil.
Before anyone wants to debate about this issue of race and racism in Brazil, I ask that you take the time and read some of the works of these scholars.
Now, let us consider for a moment that the sayings and proverbs of a society reflect its views to a certain degree. With that point in mind, is anyone familiar with these sayings?
"Branca for marriage, mulata for sex, preta for work"
"If a negro doesn't shit on his way in, he shits on his way out"
"A good negro is born dead"
"He is black, but he has the soul of a white"
"The negro does not eat, he gulps"
"The negro is like a bad chamber pot, it does not break"
Well, as much as Brazilians like to claim American society is far more racist than that of Brazil, all of these sayings come from Brazil!
And once again, Mr.Cristaldo, these sayings have nothing to do with social class!
The Black Stigma
With such proverbs, is it any wonder why so many Brazilians don't want to be associated with being black? Ask yourself, if racism isn't as strong in Brazil as it is in other countries, why do so many black people not want to be or be called black? Where did they get this attitude from? I have experienced subtle and extreme forms of racism in my own life and many of these situations are exactly the same as those I hear about as told by black Brazilians.
7. "In Brazil we never had any laws denying blacks any rights."
This argument is also flat. Official laws and signs saying "no blacks allowed" are not necessary if the rules are socially enforced, which is what happened in Brazil during America's infamous "Jim Crow" years. I have read as well as heard from several black Brazilians who remember when they were denied entrance into certain establishments because they were black. There were no signs on the door, yet they were not allowed to enter.
In several books about Brazil, it has been reported that Afro-Brazilians were barred from entering prestigious social clubs even when they had the money for the special membership fees. In the Frances Twine book, we find that black people were often times not allowed to walk on certain sides of the street! Again, no signs, but it was it a socially accepted and enforced custom.
Question: If one man is shot in the head six times and dies immediately and another man dies slowly from smoke inhalation, is the end result any different?
The point here is, both American and Brazilian systems of race-based discrimination achieved similar means in different ways, but with the same result. As a matter of fact, American style racism seems to have learned a few tricks from its Brazilian counterpart in the past 40 years or so! This doesn't mean that Brazil hasn't had a history of violence against its black citizens as past police repression of capoeira performances and Candomblé rituals have proven.
Afro-Brazilians were frequently beaten, thrown in jail and their artifacts confiscated during police raids. Hmmm...Sounds suspiciously like America of the 1950s and 60s.The difference here seems to be that the Brazilian elite was smart enough not to broadcast these images to the rest of the world on television thus keeping their racist practices hidden.
8. "In Florida, marriage between whites and blacks was forbidden..."
Inter-racial unions in the US were forbidden by many states but that didn't mean that they didn't occur. Even after slavery, white men continued their sexual abuse of black women and right into the 1970s continued to exploit black women who worked in their homes as domestic servants by threatening them with dismissal unless they gave in to their (white male) sexual desires.
Also, quiet as its kept, there have been illicit sexual affairs between blacks and whites, men and women in America's "closet". There are stories of white women who voluntarily gave up their status as "respectable" white women in order to marry and raise families with black men. I agree that race mixing was and continues to be more prevalent in Brazil, but that doesn't mean that it is accepted as much as it suggests tolerance.
Actor/singer Tony Tornado revealed how the Brazilian media banned mixed race couples from being shown on television. While inter-racial marriage may have never been outlawed in Brazil, sociologist Florestan Fernandez, in his classic study of Brazilian race relations, The Negro in Brazilian Society, collected statistics that showed that 85-90 percent of white Brazilians disagreed with the marriage of one of their family members with a preto/a or pardo/a.
Another of Brazil's best kept secrets is that there have been incidents of black people being killed because they married someone white. Brazil also has a similar history of the sexual exploitation of black women. Young , white Brazilians boys were expected to have their first sexual experiences with black girls/women who worked in the homes of whites as domestic servants.
That doesn't sound like the good ol' US of A now does it?
9. "Blacks and whites inter-marry, drink and eat in the same restaurants, work and make friends in the same classrooms. If there are less blacks than whites at the universities, this is due to economic, but never juridical factors."
Like in America today, people don't always reveal their true feelings. If a person doesn't mind being around a certain type of people because in his/her mind he feels that he is "above" or "better" than them, does this mean that they do not harbor racist feelings? In John Burdick's book Blessed Anastacia, he writes of how some white girls in a Rio de Janeiro church could not understand how a particular attractive, successful white guy could possibly marry a preta.
In other words, how could he marry that ugly preta when so many beautiful brancas are available? Burdick also reveals how many black girls at dances in Rio would keep to themselves because of the fear of humiliation at the hands of white and even black guys (who would viciously criticize their dark skin or kinky hair) as well as the fact that none of these boys would ask them to dance.
As far as economic factors influencing college entrance, this is true. But you failed to mention how these economic differences are related to race. Let me explain, it's actually quite simple. Let's imagine that we both reply to the same job ad. Let us keep in mind the famous Brazilian job requirement of "boa aparência" (good appearance, good looking), which is code talk for "no blacks allowed". Now on the one hand, you, the white guy gets the job and I don't or on the other hand, we both get hired but you are paid significantly more than me for doing the same work.
This is a common occurance in Brazil as well as in America (See A cor da desigualdade: desigualdades raciais no mercado de trabalho e ação afirmativa no Brasil by Rosana Heringer). These studies prove that as hard as it is for Afro-Brazilians to get into college, often times when they DO graduate, they are usually paid less money and promoted to higher employment positions slower and less frequently than their white counterparts of similar educational background.
Getting back to my example, whether I get the job earning less money than you or don't get the job and must settle for some sort of menial labor, you are now in a better economic position. Better economic position leads to better social position. Let's suppose you are paid R$800 per month and I end up in a job where I earn between $R250 and R$350 per month. Let's also imagine that you get promoted and earn higher salary raises than I. After 15-20 years on the job you can see how our social situations could vary.
You may marry someone, most likely a white woman, who earns about R$550 per month while I would most likely marry a black woman who faces the same type of discrimination as I, and earns R$200 per month. Your family income could be as high as R$900 more than my family income. We both have kids, but while you earn enough money that your child doesn't have to work and thus can attend school and get an education (and eventually get a good-paying job), my child must leave school before completing 5 years, and get a job in order to bring home some form of income.
Now imagine this cycle is passed on over and over for several generations and you can now understand why the middle class stays predominantly white while the lower class stays predominately black. Capitalism is a system that functions on inequality; men over women, white over black and young over old. Thus, the practice of racism, sexism and age discrimination actively promote social inequality. Just because you cannot see it or it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean that it doesn't happen!
Brazil managed to develop a socially unequal society according to race without implementing the legally sanctioned racism of the US or South Africa. Black and white people eating, dancing or even having sex together are not the applicable factors that determine whether racism is an active ingredient in multiracial societies. When we study the factors that do (health, socioeconomic status, education), we find that race and racism factor prominently in explaining persistent inequalities in life.
Edward Telles is yet another sociologist whose studies of racism in Brazil prove that many inequalities that persist in Brazil today cannot be simply explained away as a result of social inequalities. If race was not a decisive factor in most facets of Brazilian life, you would have a more even distribution of blacks and whites in MOST facets of Brazilian society. Instead, Brazilian politics, media and business are all dominated almost exclusively by brancos.
How to Gage Racism
For women who believe that racism doesn't exist in Brazil, ask yourself this question: If men and women socialize together in society, get married and have children together, does this mean that sexism doesn't exist? Because men and women interact everyday does this mean that it's not possible for a man to earn more money for doing the same job simply because he is a man?
While questioning the influence of race, we must also realize that Brazilian society, like American society, is dominated by white MEN. If one is able to clearly see the existence of sexism, the same thought process must be applied to the complexities of racism.
10. "Poor whites—and there are legions of them—have the same difficulty to access upper level education that poor blacks have. Rich blacks—and they also exist—have the same easiness of access that rich whites have. There is no reason, though, for this hatred to be exported to Brazil. In this country, from the legal point of view, blacks were never discriminated."
Although I know that there are millions of poor white Brazilians, statistically, two-thirds of people living in poverty in Brazil are black. And there is no need to import hatred to Brazil because racial discrimination is a matter of fact in the daily lives of millions of Brazilians. Once again, legal discrimination does not matter if everyone chooses to socially honor a racial hierarchy that places whites first and blacks last.
Remember one thing. If a black man and a white man both start off in the same socio-economic position and both go to college and improve their lives, the white man will forever be able to disassociate himself (or even forget) from his poor beginnings because his skin color will give people the idea that he was always successful. On the other hand, like in the example of Ronaldo's family, the black man will still have to consistently prove that he is successful because his skin color is associated with failure and lower class life.
11. "The word `racism', not very frequent in the Brazilian press of past decades, now deluges the pages of newspapers."
Again, read your history! The reason why racism wasn't discussed as much in the past was because during the Brazilian military dictatorship years, to raise the issue of racism was considered a crime! Black militants who spoke out against racism were in danger of imprisonment, torture or even death under this regime, particularly during the hardline years after 1968. Several black activists chose to go into exile during this period, the most prominent being Abdias do Nascimento.
In the years following the end of slavery, there were several Afro-Brazilian organizations that were formed to fight racism, the Frente Negra Brasileira (Brazilian Black Front) being the most prominent along with Nascimento's Teatro Experimental Negro. There were also countless Afro-Brazilian newspapers that spoke directly to people of African descent concerning the condition of black Brazilians.
The FNB was forced to shut down by the Vargas regime in the 1930s and black organizations didn't really have another chance to organize again until the gradual abertura (the reduction of political repression) of the dictatorship in the late 1970s. Once again, you may not have been aware of these organizations because as a white Brazilian, you have never had to deal with issues of racism.
I repeat, just because you cannot see something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist!
12. "How can a poor, white kid face without animosity a black student who has taken his place in college only because the latter is black?"
I have a better question. Actually a few. Why did the Brazilian elite choose to bring in millions of Europeans at the beginning of the 20th century and not Africans? In the 1970s, why did your Brazilian government consistently vote in favor of a racist apartheid regime in South Africa as well as voting in favor of Portuguese domination over its African colonies when casting its vote with the United Nations?
Why is it that some Portuguese slave owners set their barns full of black slaves on fire after learning of the abolition of slavery? How is it that after 500 years of white privilege, power and advantage you can even use your fingers to ask something that ridiculous? Why is it that you can so easily see when a program is set up to benefit someone black but cannot see the overwhelming benefit of white Brazilians since the Portuguese stole the land that came to be known as Brazil? With all of the evidence I have presented in this paper, I should be able to rest my case. When you do the research and learn that everything that I have written is true, feel free to write and say, "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't know!"
I DO agree that quotas in universities is not the answer to erasing racism and inequality in Brazil, but with illiteracy levels in places like Bahia being anywhere from 50-75 percent, in order for TRUE change to be made, the entire educational system needs to be destroyed and reconstructed. Right now, with the average black Brazilian averaging only about five years of school, there aren't enough of them to take advantage of the quotas anyway. I think the government just wanted to show that they were willing to do something after so many years of doing nothing.
13. "When federal judge Bernard Friedman established the policy of affirmative action in the Law School of the University of Michigan, Americans began to realize that the quota policy was a wretched idea."
Again, in America, blacks have only really been free since 1965, so how can people begin to complain about something that has existed for less than 40 years when the previous 346 years promoted nothing but white privilege? The last I checked, 98 percent of all businesses in the US were still white-owned, thus the power structure hasn't been shaken.
Bush and Affirmative Action
So why are people so alarmed about Affirmative Action? If it weren't for Affirmative Action (white privilege), George W. wouldn't have made it through school! If it weren't for white privilege, there would be huge vacancies at schools like Yale, Princeton and Harvard. If it weren't for white privilege, most whites would not have been able to attain the wealth they enjoy today, which helps to keep our society racially divided with their communities enjoying unlimited prosperity and their being able to pass on this privilege to the next generation. Please don't start commenting about American problems when you are so uninformed about Brazilian problems!
14. "...not a few whites claimed to be blacks in the last UERJ vestibular/one-drop rule"
That may be true, but if entrance were to be judged according to birth certificate racial classification and according to those who actually see the applicants, this problem could actually be solved. Again, I am not saying that quotas are the answers to the low attendance of black Brazilians in colleges and universities, but if its going to work certain guidelines must be followed.
Socially, a person who is half black, but clearly has a European phenotype, like blonde dancer Carla Perez, in my view would not suffer from racial discrimination as a person who looks like actress Adriana Lessa would. In my view, the infamous one-drop rule is ridiculous. I remember having a white college professor who had a black grandfather although you would never know it from his appearance.
The one-drop rule would obviously not work in a country such as Brazil where race-mixing has been going for so long. In many ways, physical appearance matters more in Brazil but as I stated in my essay "Where Did All the Blacks Go?", Brazilians will occasionally disqualify someone from being white if they knew that there were pretos in that person's family. Also from that article, I stated that while:
"Brazil never legally adopted the infamous "one drop" of black blood rule as in the US, in the book Negroes in Brazil, author Donald Pierson discovered a popular saying in Brazil that said "quem escapa de branco, negro é" ("who can't be a white man is a negro")."
15. "Absurd laws are created under the pretext of fighting racism, but they end up stimulating it. Today, in Brazil, if you insult a black person, you incur in a heinous crime, with firm arrest and no bail allowed. But if you kill a black person, the law is more lenient."
Hmmm, this is interesting indeed! I'll tell you what. Do some research and find some names of black Brazilians who have successfully sued white Brazilians for racism and won in a court of law. Afro-Brazilian journalist Joni Anderson wrote that when he had a feature column in a well-known São Paulo newspaper, his voicemail was constantly flooded by Afro-Brazilians who had experienced acts of racism everyday. How many of those people do you think had the financial means to take these complaints to a court of law?
How many white Brazilians do you know (and can prove) have been actually thrown in jail for racist practices? Most likely NONE! And as far as murder, I can relay several stories I have been told in which a black Brazilian was killed and absolutely NOTHING was done about it! There is a well known story from 1996 about a 19-year old black kid named Luciano Soares Ribeiro who was run over while riding his bicycle by a white man driving a BMW who assumed that he had stolen the bike. The driver left Ribeiro laying in the street and when he was finally rushed to hospital, he died from his injuries. The boy had his bicycle receipt in his pocket. Do you know where this incident happened? In your beloved Porto Alegre!
Sure a law may exist against racial discrimination but that law is null and void if it is not enforced or the people don't have access to fair legal representation. Thus, in this case, racism bred both violence and social inequality, with a life taken in the balance. This is a regular part of life if you happen to be black and Brazilian.
16. "The history of Africa is the history of tribal warfare and slavery, stoning to death for adulterers, physical mutilation as punishment and sexual mutilation as custom. Democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and female emancipation are unknown institutions in that continent.
That Africa may be a tender remembrance of an immemorial past, that's all right. Today, though, it has no lesson to teach to the West. When Africans have free elections and democracy, the fundamentals of human rights, a press and freedom of the press, women with the same rights as men, and when clitoris are no longer mutilated nor women stoned to death, we can talk again."
Now Mr. Cristaldo wants to share his biased opinions about Africa and explain why African history and culture should not be taught in Brazilian schools in order to increase the self-esteem of Afro-Brazilian children while improving Brazil's overall awareness of Africa's rich history and contribution to Brazil's national identity. History, Mr. Cristaldo, can be told in many ways. There is an old African proverb that basically says that it is the victor who writes history from his perspective.
History's Two Sides
Napoleon Bonaparte once asked "What is history but a fable agreed upon?"
As a child attending a Catholic school I once idolized the legendary American President Abraham Lincoln. I didn't learn until years later that in reference to the issue of race in America, Mr. Lincoln once said "I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." This reminded me of a line American rapper Ice Cube once said: "I'm sitting in history learning `bout a sucka who didn't give a f**k about me!"
History must reveal its positive side as well as its negative side and then as the children get older they can do even more research and discover more truth. How dare you speak of African tribal warfare without speaking of Adolph Hitler's massacre of 6 million people or without speaking of King Leopold of Belgium exterminating 10 million people in the Congo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries! Let's talk of how there were more than 20 million Natives in the Americas before the arrival of the European. Today, after mass European aggression and domination, there are probably around 2 million Natives between America and Brazil, the two largest countries of the Americas.
Let's talk about how the Germans exterminated 80 percent of the Herero tribe in Namibia in seven years from 1904-1911. Let's speak of how the French and British brought South African woman Saartje Baartman, aka the "Venus Hottentott", to Paris and London to parade her body in sideshows like a zoo animal because of the size of her huge buttocks! They later preserved her genitals and brain and placed them on display at a Parisian museum until the 1970s. The body was only returned to South African last year!
Let's speak about the incredible atrocities provoked by the Portuguese in Africa! Let's speak about the millions who have been killed in the European spread of Christianity! You want to speak of tribal warfare? Well throughout European history you find England vs. France, Spain vs. Portugal, Italy vs. Greece, Christians vs. Protestants and too many other invasions, wars and episodes of mass extermination to speak of here.
You speak of physical mutilation? Do you know how women were treated and viewed during the spread of Christianity? Do the research! On the other hand, there have been many African civilizations that were matriarchal societies with the children of unions taking their mother's name and tracing their ancestry through the mother's family line. Sexual mutilation? There is still a debate as to whether female circumcision was a purely African custom or whether the Arabs introduced it into Africa.
Africans have killed each other, but where did they get the weapons to do so? Similar to the way the CIA dumped guns and drugs in African-American ghettos, Europeans have been giving Africans weapons for centuries also! Angola, for example, was stuck in a Cold War tug of war between America and South Africa on the one side and Cuba and Russia on the other. The result? African casualties!
Shall I even mention the 1976 Soweto riots in which the South African police opened fire and killed hundreds of defenseless black children for the crime of protesting against European domination and racism? We cannot truly know the history of African people until we separate it from centuries of European or Arab domination. Europe or European dominated countries are no place to start if we want to teach children about the value of human life!
What Democracy?
You say, "Democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and female emancipation are unknown institutions in that continent."
If you know anything about Western countries, you know that America and particularly Brazil have incredible ideals of machismo! Countless studies have shown how Brazilian men have regularly killed Brazilian women who were suspected of infidelity while it was accepted norm among men. Democracy and human rights? Brazil's record or human rights atrocities are horrible! The mass murder of black people and street children as well as modern day slavery in parts of Brazil have been well documented! Where have YOU been living? Have you read any past issues of this magazine?
Have you read about the landless movements? Have you read the stat saying that less than 20 percent of the Brazilian population owns more than 80 percent of the land? How can you even speak of democracies when Brazil has endured two military dictatorships in the 20th century and an "apartheid-era South Africa" type government that is still in power in Bahia? Have you read about the horrible methods of torture and numbers of people who disappeared during the 1964-1985 dictatorship? Have you read about the mass prison exterminations? Are you sure you are Brazilian? You could have fooled me!
You speak of free elections? Are you aware of the stolen elections of John Kennedy and George W.? Apparently not. Political corruption is a worldwide thing, not just African. And as far as democracy is concerned, former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso himself has said that Brazilians are only now beginning to learn what democracy really is.
Freedom of press? Only to a limited degree. Whenever people raise their voice against the government, they are oppressed or shut down. Why do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. was REALLY killed? Why were the Black Panthers really infiltrated and broken apart? Why did so many people die during the Brazilian dictatorship of '64-85? Why have so many Brazilian politicians been killed in the past 10 years? Why were protestors against the WTO, IMF and World Bank repressed in Seattle a few years ago? Why have the (music group) Dixie Chicks been banned from American radio?
17. "That Africa may be a tender remembrance of an immemorial past, that's all right. Today, though, it has no lesson to teach to the West."
Whether you know it or not, the Egyptian influence on Western society is incredible! Need a small reminder? Ever seen the back of an American Dollar Bill? It has Egyptian symbolism all over it! Without the contributions of ancient Egyptians, many of today's technological advances would not have been possible! That is PRE-ARABIC EGYPT! You don't read much history do you?
There are two main points to recognize here:
1) History has recorded that the European has been the perpetrator of the greatest and most horrific crimes against humanity! Ever heard of Vietnam? How about the Spanish Inquisition? The Atlantic Slave Trade? World Wars I and II? That's just the tip of the iceberg! Want current proof? Ever heard of Iraq?
If you are going to tell the history of the African and highlight the negative, you would spend 20 times more time highlighting that of the European!
18. "It wouldn't be likely for Portugal, a good Christian country, to fail to perpetuate biblical tradition"
A good Christian country? Again, are you aware of the Portuguese human rights atrocities in colonial era Africa? How about the Estado Novo military dictatorship that was as brutal as that of Brazil's? How about the recent hate crimes against recent African immigrants? Let's get out of fantasy and recognize reality!
19. "From Dhakar, one reader sends me references about Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese man of letters who defends the idea that ancient Egypt is part of black Africa. It may be. But such a thesis is far from constituting unanimity among historians. Even if it were so, the argument is worthless. If a hypothetically black Egypt ever had a glorious trajectory, it is over now. The trajectory was interrupted somewhere along the way and today Egypt lives the hour of Islam—nothing glorious there. Besides everything else, ancient Egypt was slavocrat—just ask the Hebrews!—and this doesn't help the argument in favor of Africa either."
Hmmm, let me see...First of all, Egypt IS in Africa, right? Second, before the Arab invasion of the 8th century, what color do YOU think the Egyptians were? Roman and Greek writers of ancient times described them as being black. The Egyptian population of today, like that of America and Brazil of today, is not of the same racial composition that it was before subsequent foreign invasions. The facial characteristics of the vast majority of Egyptian statues look like the people whom we would call black today.
Years before he died, Cheikh Anta Diop participated in a UN meeting of the world's most respected Egyptologists to determine, among other things, the racial identity of the ancient Egyptians. With skin fold deposits that he extracted from mummies, Diop proved that the melanin content in these mummies could have only been people classified by today's terms as black. When asked for rebuttals, none of the other Egyptologists could refute this evidence. Why is it so hard for so many people to fathom that the ancient Egyptians could have been black? Thoughts like these are inherently racist in themselves!
Rewriting History
Also, unanimity among historians does not prove fact or fiction. Political agendas are often times behind the recording of history. For example, in 1916, a well respected archaeologist named James Henry Breasted described the ancient Egyptians in a high school textbook as a race of "brown-skinned men...with dark hair". But after receiving valuable financial assistance from people such as John Rockefeller (who granted him $1.5 million), among others, in order to further his studies of the ancient world, his revised book referred to these same peoples as "members of a great race of white men".
One notices between the two books, the great lengths that Breasted took to suddenly disassociate Egypt from black Africa. Why? It's simple. In order to secure Rockefeller's generous donation, he had to change the racial classification of the ancient Egyptians. A financial reward in exchange for an alteration that benefits someone else. I know, that's IMPOSSIBLE, right?
Black historians and anthropologists have been recording history for many years although their work is often disregarded by the white academic establishment. But upon closer examination, the establishment must come to terms with the discoveries of these great men. Its not about raising the position of black people in history while lowering that of white people. It's about learning truth.
My question is, if more and more discoveries confirm the contributions of African descent people in world history, will non-black people be able to accept these facts? If they cannot, they must come to terms with their own biased attitudes! The Lemba people of southern Africa have for centuries claimed that they were Jews. The establishment refused to believe them. After DNA tests were taken, the claims of the Lemba people proved that they were indeed Jews.
Black scholars and historians have long claimed that Africans arrived in the Americas long before the European, but again, the establishment disregarded them. Well, in 1975, Brazilian archaeologists discovered the oldest known fossil found to date in the country. They called her "Luzia" and when they reconstructed her face they determined that the woman had all of the physical characteristics of an African.
20. "For the time being, I repeat, Africa leans more towards Idi Amin Dada than towards Mozart."
Idi Amin was definitely a cruel tyrant. But in a world economic system driven by greed and domination even the most honest people become devious. Before you start pulling people like Idi Amin out of Africa's history, you need to look into the crimes of Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold in Africa. They were definitely more Hitler than they were Desmond Tutu. I won't even start on the corruption of Brazilian politicians! That's another 100 page paper! But I will mention a state deputy of São Paulo named Afanásio Jazadji who stated on his popular radio program his total agreement with the assassinations of Brazil's street children!
Clean your own house before you start judging someone else's!
African descent people have had to view the world from the European perspective for many centuries. If the tables were turned in the opposite direction, could peoples of primarily European descent view the world from an African perspective? I cannot answer this question for you. This is a question that people must ponder for themselves. One can succeed in fooling someone else but can that person fool themselves? I read Mr. Cristaldo's own comments that "some form of racism we all have, or we would not be human" and then I read on as he attempted to deny the most overt and covert forms of racism that has existed since the Portuguese arrived in Africa in the late 15th century and later on with the colonization of Brazil.
I'm sure that there are some of you who are reading this piece who will continue to deny the influence of race in the daily lives of millions of people of African and Native descent in our world. But my question to you is, if your phenotype does not prominently display your African ancestry and you haven't done any research about how race factors into one's chances of living a prosperous, healthy life, how can you continue to deny the existence of something that you know nothing about?
I also wish to affirm that I DO NOT view all people as racists! To the contrary, I have met many people who look nothing like me whom I am convinced have not a trace of racist tendencies in their bodies. But I am also aware of the famous Brazilian (and American, for that matter) "prejudice against being prejudiced". The question is this: If you as a man or woman, black, white or other, Christian or Muslim, knew for a fact that you received benefits that others didn't receive simply because of your race, sex or religious beliefs, would you stand up and denounce these inequalities or would you keep your mouth shut and enjoy the benefits?
In an unequal society, I really couldn't blame you if you DID take advantage of these unearned benefits, all I ask is that you can at least acknowledge it! Maybe then one day you WILL be ready to denounce it. Let's face facts about the true society that we live in, people. As powerful, rich countries continue to exploit the poorer nations and disastrous levels of poverty continue to affect the lives of the world's majority of people, something as openly obvious as the existence of racism should not deter us from seeing the entire picture which is more important: WE ARE ALL PEOPLE WHO DESERVE TO BE TREATED AS PEOPLE.
With the wealth of resources available on this planet, there is no excuse for the way that some of us are forced to live. The rich minority who control who eats and who doesn't continues to exploit these divisions among us, the people of the majority. They have placed obstacles such as racism, sexism and inequality before us and watched as these practices keep us arguing amongst ourselves as we fight amongst ourselves for the leftover resources that the rich haven't already claimed.
It is obvious that Mr. Cristaldo is another believer of these fabrications that our so-called leaders have formulated while they continue to reap the benefits that they create. In conclusion, I hope that the bulk of this paper gives a clearer view of the ways that racism continues to function in our society. Feel free to write to me with your comments, but before you start flooding my e-mail box with reactionary responses, please do some research on your own. You just might start to understand what I'm talking about!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, by Alex Bellos
Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization by Anthony Browder
Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States by Carl Degler
The Mystery of Samba : Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil by Hermano Vianna
Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture by Robert Stam
Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil by Michael Hanchard
Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World by Ruy Castro
Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil by France Winddance Twine
"How the Germans Got the Land", New African. March 2003, pgs.42-47.
"Pale Perfection: White Women in Pursuit of an Aryan Ideal", M. Wilson. [online] http://condor.depaul.edu/~mwilson/multicult/white.html . (available) April 6, 2003.
"O fim do mito", Carla Gullo Rita Moraes. Isto É. [online] http://www.terra.com.br/istoe/capa/140506.htm (available) April 6, 2003.
"Brazil Grappling With Racism". Peter Muello. Department of English, University of California. [online] http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/muello1.html (available) April 6, 2003.
"Bola discrimina negros, afirma estudo". Folha On line. [online] http://www.sapesp.com.br/noticias/outubro/racismo.html (available) April 5, 2003
"Luzia - A Primeira Brasileira". Veja. [online] http://veja.abril.com.br/250899/p_009.html. (available) April 6, 2003.
Konopothanatus brasiliensis. [online] http://www.inventabrasil.hpg.ig.com.br/jblacer.htm (available) April 3, 2003.
DJ Cliffy Presents Black Rio Brazil Soul Power 1971-1980 (compact disc). STRUT CD/LP 015
Mark Wells is an Anthropology major at the University of Michigan and has a deep interest in Brazil and the African Diaspora. He can be reached at: Quilombhoje72@yahoo.com